Perfoming BLAST searches

ePathway implements an interface to make BLAST searches, using the EBI tools, similar to those available in this site: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/sss/ncbiblast/nucleotide.html.

The goal, is to achieve complete integration with the local data, to make a single-click BLAST searches. In this version, the searches are possible using a form which provides access to the same parameters as EBI and algo a site to see the results in a convenient format.

Performing a BLAST search
To perform a BLAST search using the EBI tools, a form with the following fields is provided: In this part, the user will be notified if one of the values on the fields is invalid, or a required field is empty. Is important to note that the email is requiered to use this EBI's tool, because of a EBI's policy.
 * e-mail: the researcher's email to be notified when the Job result is readyBlast_search.png
 * JobTitle: a name to describe the job
 * Sequence Type: a sequence may be either DNA or a Protein sequence
 * Sequence: the nucleotide sequence itself
 * Program: the program used to compute the alignments, e.g. blastn
 * Database: the database where the program is going to look for genes to do the BLAST search

Consulting a result
The result of a Job may be consulted from the site http://localhost/ePathway/index.php?r=BLASTSearch/default/viewjob&pJobId=JOBID, where JOBID is replaced for any Job's ID. The application automatically provides a link to check the Job's status.

When a Job is consulted, at least this information is shown: There's also a link to go to any of the results details. The results are sorted in the same way EBI does.
 * The status of the Job (which is FINISHED when the Job is ready or NOT_FOUND for an invalid job search or when looking for a deleted Job, because EBI delete them after two days).
 * The Job's ID
 * A list of results if the Job is finished, which contains:
 * The database that contains that result
 * The ID for EBI
 * The Length of the sequence
 * A Description of the sequence